More Stories from the May 23, 2009 issue
- Space
Blob may signal monster galaxy feeding
Researchers have found a giant blob of gas and stars, the fourth most distant object known in the universe. The blob may offer the earliest snapshot of a very young galaxy caught in the act of gobbling up material for growth.
- Humans
Rapid emotional swings could precede violence
A tool from physics helps link the patterns of psychiatric patients’ symptoms and the likelihood they will commit violent acts.
- Space
Smallest exoplanet yet is found
Finding a planet just under twice Earth's size puts astronomers closer to discovering an Earth counterpart.
- Life
New neurons don’t heal
New neurons produced in the brain after a stroke don’t grow into all the cell types needed to heal the wound.
- Agriculture
News from Experimental Biology
Senior editor Janet Raloff blogs from the 2009 meeting gathering dozens of societies together in New Orleans
- Earth
Fossil of a walking seal found
A fossil skeleton discovered in the Canadian Arctic could represent a missing link in pinniped evolution.
- Earth
A little air pollution boosts vegetation’s carbon uptake
Aerosols bumped up world’s plant productivity by 25 percent in the 1960s and 1970s, new research suggests.
- Chemistry
Yeast bred to bear artificial vanilla
Researchers have co-opted fungi to produce the flavor more efficiently.
- Plants
Oops, missed that tree
Until now, an acacia common in its African homeland had no scientific name
- Psychology
Males, females swap sex-role stereotypes
Analysis finds that mating strategies are not universal
- Life
Mimivirus up close
Scientists get a closer look at the structure of mimivirus, the largest virus in the world.
- Health & Medicine
New weapon fights hepatitis C
Taking the experimental drug telaprevir with standard medications for hepatitis C clears the virus from patients’ blood better than the standard combination alone.
- Life
Birds bust a move to musical beats
Parrots and possibly other vocal-mimicking animals can synchronize their movements to a musical beat, two new studies suggest.
- Life
Expansive genetic diversity in Africa revealed
Largest genetic study of African populations yields clues about the origin of modern humans and the ancestry of African-Americans
-
Science Future for May 23, 2009
June 4–6 Organization for the Study of Sex Differences annual meeting in Toronto. See www.ossdweb.org June 6 The annual Galaxy Ball held in Arlington, Va. See www.foge.org July 22 Get to eastern Asia to watch the total solar eclipse. Visit eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov
-
The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets by Alan Boss
A renowned astronomer details, by day, the history of planet hunting, and argues that alien life is common and will soon be found. Basic Books, 2009, 227 p., $26. THE CROWDED UNIVERSE: THE SEARCH FOR LIVING PLANETS BY ALAN BOSS
-
Book Review: The Day We Found the Universe by Marcia Bartusiak
Review by Elizabeth Quill.
-
Enjoy the indelible experience of emulating Galileo
I was tickled when Rick Fienberg, then editor of Sky & Telescope magazine, stood up at a special session at the August 2006 meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague, grabbed the microphone and proclaimed that every person on Earth should look at the night sky through a telescope in 2009, as Galileo did […]
-
Timeline: Seeing better
In 400 years, telescopes advance from rooftops to mountains to orbit.
-
Eyes on the sky
A roster of new and proposed telescopes
-
Gazing deeper still
Four hundred years ago, Galileo and his telescope brought the heavens into focus, setting the stage for modern astronomy.
-
- Astronomy
New eyes on the cosmos
The next constellation of telescopes will dramatically extend and sharpen scientists’ view of the universe.
-
Science Past from the issue of May 23, 1959
NUCLEAR-POWERED BLIMP — America’s first nuclear-powered aircraft could very well be a huge blimp, about three times the size of those now being used by the U.S. Navy for submarine and plane spotting…. The blimp’s length would be 540 feet, making it possible to locate the atomic reactor far enough away from the craft’s control […]
-
Astronomical Spectrographs and their History by John Hearnshaw
Astronomers have used these instruments to explore the heavens since the 19th century. Cambridge Univ., 2009, 240 p., $140. ASTRONOMICAL SPECTROGRAPHS AND THEIR HISTORY BY JOHN HEARNSHAW
